Gaps for American TV shows

[MmmSkyscraper]

Why do American TV series have gaps between some episodes? Sometimes it's a month (eg Lost), other times it's a week or two (eg Family Guy, American Dad)...

Is it:

a) to honour legal things like not broadcasting certain episodes before other networks/countries have shown the previous ones?

b) cos the networks aren't willing to commit money for enough episodes being made so it could be screened without interruption?

c) to piss us off?

Edit: oh yeah, and those sh1tty "specials" or repeats they put on instead can fvck off too.

 

[Argo]

Mostly because other networks have some specials going during that week and they don't want to compete with each other. Like for example the superbowl weekend.

 

[kranky]

They make only a couple dozen episodes for a season (for most shows) and they need to space them out to keep the viewers watching. If they ran them all on consecutive weeks, people would stop watching as soon as they realized there wouldn't be a new episode for 6 months.

 

[Joemonkey]

i think the family guy and american dad thing was due to lucas wanting episode II shown, and then the holiday weekend which = low ratings